1. Technical Field
The present invention generally relates to a system and method for configuring an application. More particularly, the present invention provides a configuration interface for configuring an application in response to calls made to entry points in the interface from a configuration tool.
2. Background Art
In today's business environment, business organizations are increasingly utilizing computer systems in an attempt to become more profitable. Typically, such computer systems are implemented with a combination of hardware and software applications designed to make the business more efficient. Problems arise, however, when the applications must be configured to perform in a certain manner. For example, a business organization might change the address of its electronic mail server. In such a case, the mail server address as configured in the electronic mail application must also be changed. In addition, a business organization might implement a new application. Part of the implementation includes configuring the application to function properly within the organization's computing environment. In the past, configuration was performed on an individual basis. That is, a user would manually access each computer system to configure each application. Such a task, however, is extremely burdensome for a large organization having numerous computer systems.
Heretofore, attempts have been made in developing more efficient methods to configure applications. Under one such attempt, a user can configure an application from a remote workstation. Although this allows the user to configure applications stored on different computer systems from one location, it still has many drawbacks. For example, in order for an application to be configured, the user must be able to access the dialogs used to configure the application. Specifically, each application typically utilizes a unique set of dialogs in setting up its configuration. These dialogs must be identified and accessed before the application can be configured. Generally, the dialogs are identified and accessed by reverse engineering the application's configuration. However, reverse engineering has many potential problems such as constantly having to keep up with configuration chances in the application, and not being able to access configuration data stored in a proprietary manner.
In view of the foregoing, there exists a need for a system and method for configuring an application. A need also exists for a system and method to be able to configure an application from a central workstation via a configuration interface in the application so that reverse engineering of the application's configuration is not necessary.